Via Dolorosa (5 page)

“Wouldn’t know.”

“Ever seen them? I never have. Sort of curious.”

“Never seen them,” Nick said.

“They’re supposed to be enormous. That they come out and swarm all over everything. Kill the trees, lay eggs in the bark…”

“Wouldn’t know.”

“So how much longer will you be here, Lieutenant?”

“Until I’m finished,” Nick told him.

“Will it take you long to finish now?”

“I don’t know. I can never really tell until it’s nearly done.”

“Every morning I look at it, and then I look again every night when I close this place down to see what you’ve added to it throughout each day. Past few days it hasn’t changed much. I just figured you might be done. Are you finished with the sketching part?”

“With the sketching part,” Nick said. “Yeah, I think so.”

“It’s really damn impressive. I mean, I’m no artist, you know, but it’s certainly something to see. You have a talent.”

“Thank you.”

“So will you start painting it soon, do you think?”

“Tomorrow,” he said. “Unless my lousy goddamn hand refuses to cooperate.”

“Is it giving you trouble?” the bartender said, but would not look at the hand.

“It’s all right for now. Sometimes it aches and goes stupid and useless on me, but right now, sitting here, the damn thing is fine. It’s working with it that’s the tough part. And, really, the sketching is the hardest part. It’s the fine details that make the hand weak.” It certainly was the fine details, Nick understood, although he was new in understanding all of it. The mural was the first thing he’d attempted to paint since coming back from Iraq.

“Well, the sketch looks really damn good, Lieutenant.”

“I’m not so happy with it.”

“Seriously?”

“It lacks nuance.”

“Oh,” said the bartender.

“You know anything about nuance?”

“Not in paintings,” the bartender admitted. “No.”

“Nuance,” Nick explained, “is what makes it all real and worthwhile. It’s the details. It’s the things we incorporate that you need to see and experience firsthand to even know they exist in order to recreate them and give them a sense of honesty.”

“Hell, I’m sure there’s nuance, Lieutenant.”

“I’m not so sure,” Nick said. “And can we quash the lieutenant business?”

“I’m sorry, Mr.
D’Nofrio
.”

“My name is Nick. You’re just about the same age as me, Roger, for Christ’s sake.”

“All right,” the bartender said, then added, “Nick.”

“Forget it. I didn’t mean to jump on your back. Call me whatever you want.”

“It’s fine.”

He drank some more scotch and could tell the bartender was thinking something but he could not tell what it was. “Come on, Roger. I’m just sulking here.” He tried hard to sound pleasant. “Don’t they sulk much back where you’re from?”

“Milwaukee,” Roger said. “And yes, they sulk. But it’s Wisconsin. They have a hell of a lot more to sulk about.”

“All right, all right,” Nick said, bested. “I’m just giving you a hard time because I’m tired and dissatisfied with the sketch and, anyway, my hand’s been hurting like a bastard lately. Come on—no more back jumping.”

“You didn’t jump on my back,” Roger said. He was tall, very tall, with close-cropped, sand-colored hair and severe blue eyes—eyes that were much steadier than Nick’s own. “I didn’t feel any jump, sir.”

“Good for you, then.”

Roger, the bartender, chuckled good-naturedly.

“Tell me why I feel like I’m fifty years old, Roger.”

“I think sometimes you look twice that.”

“Thank you.”

“Maybe you’re just tired.”

“Yeah,” Nick said, nodding. “Tired. Good. Always tired. What a son of a bitch, right?”

“Sure.”

“It’s a little cold in here.”

“Is it?”

“Do you feel it?”

“I think it’s warm, actually.”

“Oh.” He felt a skip in the groove of his own warped consciousness. “Are you married, Roger?”

“Sir?”

“Are you married?” he said again.

“I was at one time,” said Roger.

“How long?”

“Seven years.”

“Wow. That’s some time. You’re young, I mean.”

“We married very young.”

“On purpose?”

“I’m sorry—?”

“What I meant was, there weren’t any, ah, extenuating circumstances, if you…well, you know…”

“Oh, no. No.” Roger said, “She wasn’t pregnant.”

“Did you love her?”

“Of course.”

“Was she pretty?”

“She looked just like you would want a wife to look.”

“Did you have any kids together?”

“One.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Girl.”

“This is like extracting teeth, Roger. What’s her name, this girl of yours?”

“Faye,” said Roger, suddenly digging around in his rear pocket. “She’s the reason I moved to the Carolinas.” He produced a worn leather wallet, flipped it open, and slid out a creased, dog-eared photograph of a beautiful, dark-haired, smiling girl.

“She’s very beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Roger said, looking at the picture as if to commit it to memory. He then slid it back into his wallet and tucked the wallet away in his pocket.

“Children need a good, healthy place to grow up, I suppose.”

“I suppose,” Roger agreed.

“And you’re no longer married?”

“No, sir,” the bartender said.

“Why?”

“It didn’t take.”

“It didn’t take?”

“No, sir,” Roger said. “The marriage, it didn’t take.”

“You talk of it as though it were a goddamn organ transplant.”

“I’m sorry.” Something potent and previously available had suddenly dried up inside Roger, Nick could tell.

“Crap.” Nick paused, thinking, and looked at his drink. When he finally looked back up at the bartender, he said, “Forget it, man—Roger. It’s none of my goddamn business. None of it is any of my business. Don’t listen to anything I say tonight. I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing wrong with some conversation.”

“Oh, sure,” Nick said. “Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that at all.” And he rolled his shoulders—forcefully casual. “It’s just easier to talk about the rain sometimes. Or the—the what?—those bugs.”

“Cicadas,” Roger said.

“Cicadas,” he repeated. “Right.”

“How about another Dewar’s?” Roger, too, sounded just as eager to change topics.

“That’s something good to talk about, too. Scotch is something good to talk about.”

“Then I’ll fix you another one.”

“Let me get it, Roger,” a man said, coming up behind Nick and placing a hand on Nick’s shoulder. It was the bell captain, looking tired and drained and with half-hearted, glassy eyes. He was still in his uniform, though the collar was now unbuttoned and a bloom of steel-colored hair puffed out from his reddened chest. His ample, squat body looked uncomfortable in the uniform—big-bellied, thickly forearmed, simian-knuckled.

“Nicholas,” said the bell captain.

“Hello, Mr. Granger,” Nick said, and squeezed the bell captain’s forearm with his left hand. “You don’t have to keep buying me drinks every time I see you.”

“You will never pay for an alcoholic beverage whenever I’m around, Nicholas,” Granger said. “What you do when you’re on your own, however,” the bell captain continued, “well, that’s another story…”

“I feel like a mooch.”

“Nonsense.”

“At least have a drink with me,” Nick said.

“It’s been a long day, Nicholas. I think I can manage to actually get some sleep tonight. I’m going to try, anyway. With this storm, we’ve had no one arriving for the past several hours. A lot of cancellations. The hotel is very quiet and I’m going to use it. I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“Emma and I ate dinner down here a few hours ago,” he told the bell captain. “I guess everyone’s staying in their rooms. We were the only couple in the place.”

“I’m glad for the two of you. It can be such a romantic place. The whole island can be romantic.”

Nick, who did not wish to talk about romance, said, “Just one drink. It isn’t very late.” And before the bell captain could protest further, Nick requested a second scotch from the bartender.

When the drinks came, the two men drank together and mostly in silence. It seemed the most appropriate way to drink scotch very late at night in a hotel during a thunderstorm.
There you go again,
he thought to himself.
There you go, thinking like an old man. How old do you really
think you are, you lousy son of a bitch? Just because you’ve seen some things
and just because
your
good hand has become your bad hand, do you honestly
think you’ve lived enough to act and think so old?
He knew he was a fool, and knowing this brought a wet little smile to his face. It could have just been the scotch, though.

“Tell me about Emma, Nicholas,” Granger said. They were both nearing the end of their drinks and it was the first real thing the man had said since he’d sat down. “Tell me about the two of you.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I want to know what it would be like to be your father, Nicholas, and to sit here and hear about my son and his wife. I want to know what it would be like to be proud and happy for you. I truly am proud and happy for you, Nicholas, but just for one little moment in time I would like to know what it would be like to be proud and happy as your father.”

Nick did not know what to say and Roger, the bartender, was watching Mr. Granger skeptically.

“Oh, hell,” Granger said after a moment. Perhaps he, too, felt the awkwardness. It seemed the entire bar was filled with awkwardness tonight. “I’m sorry, Nicholas. That was a lousy thing to say. I’m sorry.”

“Everyone seems sorry for something tonight,” Nick said from the
corner of his mouth.

“I am,” Granger said.

“Not a big deal, Mr. Granger,” Nick said.

Looking up at the bartender, Granger said, “You know the story,
don’t you, Roger?”